Some leading manufacturers are developing the adaption of using run-flat tires in the line up of their vehicles. This allows some advantages for the owner of the vehicle but like anything, it comes with certain disadvantages. The main purpose of this added feature is the ability to drive a short amount of distance after suffering a puncture in the tire to make it to a service station.
Doesn’t this sound great? You could be driving down the road, following a vehicle, when something falls off the vehicle in front of you, and with no time to react. PPUUUUFFF! You don’t have time to change a tire or really don’t want to be out on this busy commute road attempting to fix your problem with motorists wheezing by.
So sure there are advantages to running these tires. Like being able to continue along for a short amount to time until you can get to a safe service station to make repairs before a blow out happens. It is much easier to keep clean and have someone else do the work while you wait a short amount of time to get back on the road and on schedule. Even better, maybe you’re a person that needs the cargo room in the trunk of your car where usually the spare tire is stored. With these special tires, there shouldn’t be any need to carry a spare along with you. This would allow you to use that most precious cargo room for your personal use.
As stated before, with everything there are certain disadvantages. To start with, what if you are on a trip or commute where the nearest service station is not as near as you would wish? These tires will keep you running for a short amount of time, but like any tire, they will eventually breakdown causing you the need to replace the entire tire. This could become costly if you have too many flats. Worst yet if you run too long on a flat tire you could easily damage the rim and have the need to replace this costly feature that wouldn’t need to be done otherwise. This could all be prevented as long as you keep the spare tire in the vehicle and change it out if you have a long-distance to go after an incident. Wouldn’t that defeat the whole purpose of using these tires? If you kept the spare and used it to prevent damage you would lose that extra cargo space, still have to change the tire, and be right where you were before purchasing these tires.
So as long as you have many service stations along your route or at least get a punctured tire close to one, run-flat tires would be a good purchase for you. Otherwise, the wait for better technology with these tires may be worthwhile.
- Author: Jennifer Biggins
- Originally Published: April 24, 2012
- Word count: 477
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